Last night’s episode, “LaFleur”, was the halfway-point in what has been a trippy, time-traveling season of veritable geekiness. And if I’m being honest, after a half-season of quantum physics and “where are they now?” dystopia, I was ready for a good ol’ character-centric flashback / flashforward episode. In “LaFleur”, we finally find out what happened to Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles, and Farraday after Locke “saved” them by turning the frozen donkey wheel. The episode focused primarily on Sawyer, the erstwhile bad boy who seems to have embraced his inner leader in the 1970s Dharma era. It’s interesting that James uses his con man skills — the same skills that got him in trouble with the law in the first place and ultimately led him to the Island — to save not only himself but to concoct a lie to save his fellow time-travelers as well. In this sense, Sawyer parallels Jack (who hatched the lie the Oceanic 6 have been hiding behind for the past three years). It looks like both of those lies will come to a head next week as the arrival of Jack, Kate, and the rest of the gang will surely put Sawyer’s lie to the test. Indeed, the truth will find you out.
The episode begins with a recap of when we last saw our castaways. Locke descends into the well, the sky flashes, and “the record skips”. Our castaways are deposited at a point in time much earlier than any other point we’ve seen thus far, as evidenced by the gigantic monolith they see towering over the Island. We’re left with the assumption that this is the same four-toed statue from the Season Two finale (although we didn’t get a shot of his feet). The statue looks Egyptian; perhaps a representation of the Egyptian god Anibus or Horus. According to wikipedia (via my friend Skid), the “Eye of Horus” became an important Egyptian symbol of power. In an ancient battle for the throne of Egypt, Horus suffered an injury to his eye. After his eye was healed by Hathor, the eye of Horus became a symbol of renewal. How many times have we seen an opening shot of someone’s eye? Wasn’t Hurley drawing pictures of a pyramid a few weeks ago? Weren’t there Egyptian hieroglyphs in the Hatch in Season Two? Weren’t there also hieroglyphs down in the frozen donkey wheel chamber? Are we supposed to make a Horus / Horace connection in this episode? Hmmm…
When Locke turns the wheel down below, the Left Behinders are dropped off (for good?) in the year 1974. Doc Jensen of EW posits that “1974 is when / where the castaways were always and immediately supposed to have gone when Ben turned the donkey wheel last season. They didn’t because of two mistakes that required elaborate course correction: Locke not turning the wheel, and the Oceanic 6 (plus Desmond and Lapidus) leaving.” That makes sense to me. We learn that the 1974 Dharma Initiative had reached some sort of truce with the Richard Alpert-led “hostiles”. Just before Sawyer and Juliet saved Michelle Dessler from certain doom (Sawyer is the new Jack Bauer), Farraday delivered what may be the most telling line of the night: “Whatever happened, happened.” I suspect the rest of this season will be dealing with the issue of whether the past / future can be altered, or does everything default back to a path of known outcomes and “course corrections”. Personally, I place myself squarely in the camp that says it CAN be altered.
(By the way, if these “hostiles” are the ones who killed Paul, aren’t they responsible for breaking the truce?)
Meanwhile, in our new 1977 timeline, Sawyer and the gang have seamlessly integrated themselves into the Dharma Initiative. My favorite moment of the night: Juliet succesfully delivering Amy and Horace’s baby. What a relief that must’ve been for her, after years of watching similar scenarios end in tragedy. Big question: who is this child? A son, born in 1977. I suppose there are several possibilities. Ethan, perhaps? Someone else?
The episode closed with the moment we’ve been waiting for all season: a castaway reunion (of sorts). Sawyer’s look when he saw Kate told the whole story. Personally, I like him with Juliet. But it should be interesting to see where this thing goes from here.
already & not yet 
We now may be able to understand Charlotte’s comment to Daniel when she tells him that HE told HER if she got off of the island not to come back. And Juliet is a jack of all trades, now working as a Dharma Mechanic.It didn’t surprise me at all to see that Juliet and LaFleur (Sawyer) hooked up. But I don’t know if everyone else will agree with me or not, but I don’t care too much for the LaFleur side of Sawyer.And how about Jin, now fluently speaking English? Kinda weird.The most interesting thing of the entire episode was the dialogue between Alpert and Sawyer. I want to know what kind of deal they struck, and what all was said in that interchange. Sawyer, at that moment, was an excellent character.
The Farraday / Charlotte stuff is really interesting to me. We learned last night that someone’s dead body doesn’t make the jump when the Island flashes. Wonder if this has any significance. One thing I didn’t put in my post (because it was already getting pretty lengthy): last season Ben confirmed that Charlotte was born in 1979. But last night, we saw her in the 1974 timeline. Continuity error? Or is there some kind of cover-up with her, too, a la Aaron, where she is (for whatever reason) told she has a different birthday? I suppose Ben could’ve just been reciting faulty information or misinformation, but I hope the producers clear that up for us in a podcast or something. I guess Jin had to do something over the course of these 3 years, so he took up learning English. I’m glad; maybe he’ll have more to contribute to the plot now.
It seems like the show lately has been getting into the question of destiny vs. choice. We saw this specifically in “Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” when Locke was discussing how he had to die with Widmore and Abbadon and them telling him he had a choice to die.This destiny vs. choice is now playing out in time travel, like you said Jason. Farraday clearly thinks that choice has no part to play in that whatever happens has already happened. Interesting stuff, but it makes my head spin.Great episode. Like you said, it was very character-centric, which is really nice. Plus, it’s always great to see Sawyer really becoming a leader (although it was weird to see him without the beard he’s had for the past 3 seasons). Sawyer, here’s a tip: Pick Juliet! Kate changes her mind more than a middle school girl.I’m interested to see where the show goes from here. Question: Locke and the Ajiva Airlines people are in post 2004, correct? Meanwhile Jack, Kate, and Hurley are in 1974. In the last episode, they said Lepidus and “some woman” took one of the boats. I assumed that woman was Sun. Why did she stay in post-2004, while the other 3 ended up in 1974? And how does everyone get back to the same time period? My head is hurting.
And no new episode for two weeks?I thought the whole point of them taking an 8 month hiatus was so they could show all 17 episodes straight.
Dylan,Yeah I’m interested to see how the whole destiny / free will thing is resolved on the show. How much of a character’s actions are dictated by “destiny”? And how many of those choices are influenced by the mere suggestion of said destiny? In Locke’s case, a great many, it seems. He’s a sucker for anybody who’ll pay him some attention and tell him he’s “special”. He’ll even die for you if you tell him it’s his destiny. But now that he’s raised to life on the Island, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t his destiny.On a similar note, I wonder if somehow some of the players in this drama are physical manifestations of this whole “course correction” thing we’ve heard referenced before. Since the Oceanic Six were never “supposed” to leave the Island, Christian Shepherd appeared to Jack, Charlie appeared to Hurley, Claire appeared to Kate…all of which eventually led the O6 back to the Island. Maybe even Abbadon serves this kind of purpose. It would seem that Locke was “supposed” to go to the Island much earlier in the timeline (perhaps when Alpert came to see him as a young child). But since he didn’t, Abbadon was there in the hospital to encourage him to go on a walk-about. Abbadon also works with Locke to get the O6 back to the Island. I don’t know; all of this could just be poppy-cock. But I think I’m on to something.You are right; Locke and the rest of the Ajira crew are in the year 2007 or somewhere thereabouts while Jack, Kate, and Hurley are in 1977. From the previews, it looks like Sayid is also in the ’70s. Not sure about Sun. Cesar noted in “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” that he remembered Hurley disappearing when the flash came; then the plane came down. That’s how we know the Ajira castaways are in the “present”, so to speak. I’m with you; I think Sun is the woman who hopped in the boat with Lapidus. But as for why she and Locke and Ben stayed in the present, I have no explanation. Hopefully we’ll be finding that out in the near future. (And yes, the irony of that last sentence is not lost on me. And I didn’t mean to make a “lost” pun, either. Good day.)
Oh, and as for the whole “no new episode next week” thing, I can only assume that they’re doing this because the finale date has already been set, but they want to give us our usual two hour season finale. So we have a one week intermission before the second act of Season 5. If that ain’t it, I dunno.